Rhoda AI

Rhoda AI

Senior Design Engineer- Actuators for Generalist Intelligent Robots

Mountain View · Senior

Sponsorship not specifiedDetected 29 days ago
CATIAFEAThermal AnalysisStructural AnalysisGD&TRoboticsMechanical DesignHardware DesignResearchOrganizational SkillsActuators

About the role

  • We've raised over $450M and are investing aggressively in model research, infrastructure, hardware development, and manufacturing scale-up to make generalist robotics a reality.
  • Actuators are the dense, highly-loaded subsystems where electromagnetics, structural mechanics, tribology, and thermal management all converge inside a few cubic centimeters.
  • Every gram, every micron of tolerance, and every interface decision compounds across dozens of joints.

Responsibilities

  • End-to-End Component Ownership: Own the mechanical design of motors, gear trains, and actuator housings from concept through mass production. You're accountable for performance, manufacturability, cost, and reliability of the components you draw.
  • Detailed Design & CAD: Produce high-fidelity 3D CAD models and 2D engineering drawings with comprehensive GD&T and datum strategies. Design for assembly, design for manufacturing, and design for the inspection methods your suppliers actually have.
  • Tolerance & Interface Management: Perform dimensional stack-up analysis on critical-to-function interfaces - air gaps, gear meshes, bearing fits, preload paths. Define and defend the tolerances that matter and open up the ones that don't.
  • Run RFQs, technical feasibility reviews, and troubleshoot manufacturing issues during prototype and production builds.
  • Build the kind of supplier relationships that get you parts on time when things go sideways.
  • Test Plan Definition: Partner with modeling and test engineers to define test plans for optimization and durability of your components - characterization runs, life tests, environmental tests, and the failure-mode-specific tests that catch the issues a generic protocol misses.
  • Design Iteration from Data: Close the loop between test results, model predictions, and your CAD. When a part fails or a model says it shouldn't have, you're the one who figures out why and what to change.
  • Cross-Functional Integration: Work closely with modeling, test, electronics, controls, and systems engineers. Your components live inside a larger robot, and the best mechanical design in the world doesn't matter if it doesn't integrate.
  • Core Fundamentals: Strong grasp of machine design fundamentals - bearing selection and preload, gear sizing and tolerance, shaft design, fits and finishes, fastener engineering, and the mechanics of rotating assemblies.

Requirements

  • In this role, you are the architect of your components.
  • You must be a strong generalist across electromechanical hardware, but your superpower for this role is rigorous mechanical design - CAD, GD&T, tolerance stacks, and DfM - for precision rotating machinery.
  • Provide the mechanical engineering support required during actuator characterization - fixtures, instrumentation interfaces, teardown analysis, and the iterative design changes that come out of test data.
  • Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field.

Nice to have

  • Technical "Superpower": Deep proficiency in CAD (CATIA preferred) and the ability to define datum strategies and tolerances from concept through production.

Benefits

  • BONUS POINTS (THE "PLUS" LIST)
  • Education: Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Mechatronics, or a related field.
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